About us:

Our aim:

People are often frustrated by the fact that it's usually men who are interviewed by the media or asked to present at conferences and not women*.

There isn't a biological explanation for this. Men are not cleverer than women*. Anyone who points out this discrepancy is usually told that there wasn't a suitable woman* available.

We are convinced that there are a lot more competent women around than just those who speak in public. Girls need female role models, women* need the assurance that another view on the topic, ie theirs, is equally relevant.

Events need more diversity. The main aim of the "Speakerinnen-List" to increase the visibility of women* in the field of public speaking. With the help of our list it will be easier for organisers to find female experts to speak at their events. We also want to actively invite women* to speak more often and in public about their area of expertise.

Our Team:

Anne Roth

Political scientist, digital rights activist and blogger. Her topics: surveillance, domestic policy, media and feminism. She is currently senior advisor at the parliamentary inquiry on mass surveillance at the German Bundestag, aka "NSA Inquiry". In April 2013 she started to count events and to blog about them which later led to the creation of the Speakerinnen project.

Maren Heltsche

Maren Heltsche is the project manager and one of the developers of speakerinnen.org speakerinnen.org. Her passions are DIY, digital media and programming Ruby on Rails with the Railsgirls Berlin. She is also the co-founder and editor of the online magazine Rosegarden and head of the local chapter Berlin of the Digital Media Women. Maren works as a freelance data analyst and project manager.

Christiane Weihe

Writer of profession and passion. She works as an editor and word-consultant. In her free time she loves to travel the world. The most exciting cities she brings to her blog-magazine Naest. Christiane helps with Speakerinnen questions, takes care of adminstrative and marketing tasks.

Mandy Schossig

Mandy Schossig exerts her love for communication fulltime at the Oeko-Institut and for the good cause. Besides that she writes as Dr. Madny Read about their enthusiasm for books and reading in general. She wholeheartedly supports Speakerinnen in communicating.

Background:

Speakerinnen.org was created by 8 women with the support of 4 coaches as part of "Rails Girls Berlin" learning project.

The idea of having a database of women* speakers originated during numerous discussions both online and offline about the dominance of men in the public domain. There are lots of reasons for this and speakerinnen.org isn't a solution for all of them. But it is a step towards making it easier for organisers to achieve a balanced male to female ratio at their events.

In addition we want to support women* in finding the right platform. We hope they will be encouraged by the experiences of other women* and see that they too have a contribution to make.

Railsgirls / Rubymonsters:

Rails Girls is an international non-profit organisation that motivates women to learn computer programming. They facilitate this through interesting workshops, study groups, grants and by creating a positive learning community. The Rubymonsters are a study group which emerged during one of the Rails Girls Berlin workshops.

How can you support us:

There are lots of ways in which you can support the speakerinnen.org project:

tell other women* about it

create your own profile

send us an email with a link to networks and communities that deal with specific topics

build with us! If you're good at web design or programming, help us complete the ongoing issues. There's a list here.